Break the Cycle
by A New Username
Summary: Kirigaya Kimiko went through her life alone, alongside her peers but apart from them. It was better that way, it lessened the impact of pain. So when she found herself smack dab in the middle of a group of five new friends, she had no idea how any of it worked. But she didn't mind learning. After experiencing such kindness, she could never go back. (Prequel to Transcendent Bonds)
1. Prologue: Better and Worse

**Author's Note**

 **I've been writing this for like two months. It's been a real challenge. This is the spinoff of my other story, Gun Gale Online: The Swordswoman – Transcendent Bonds. It takes the role of a prequel, and gives backstory to both Kiriko and the Black Cats.**

 **Here's the warnings that apply:**

 **Though this is the earliest story in the timeline, and is therefore readable as a standalone, I would not recommend just jumping headfirst into it without knowing the series I'm talking about. I wouldn't say you'd need to read all of Transcendent Bonds first, but if you want to be a little less blindsided by the differences from canon, read the first twelve or so chapters of the aforementioned story. It's not absolutely necessary, but it will provide some context about this AU that you may want.**

 **Kirito is female. In this story, her name is Kirigaya Kimiko, which gets shortened to 'Kiriko' online.**

 **Since** _ **no other character has been gender-flipped**_ **, and I don't ship either version of Kirito with male characters, this story will have yuri, or lesbianism for those who prefer American terms. Though I will say that this story in particular will be a lot more reflective of the Japanese view of homosexuality: that it's wrong/unacceptable and is highly frowned upon. I don't normally do this, but this is the only story in its series set almost entirely in real life (in Japanese society), so I felt it was appropriate.**

 **In this part of the AU of the Swordswoman Pentalogy, no VRMMOs exist yet. As such, the vast majority of the story will take place in real life, with no VR stuff even mentioned. Sword Art Online is a popular 2D MMO designed primarily by Kayaba Akihiko in this universe. Towards the end, the beta for Gun Gale Online, this series' SAO incident equivalent, will start, but I won't be narrating any of it. This story is all real-life.**

 **The development of the romance will be painfully slow in this story. Like, slower than in any of my other fics, I think. The reason being that this story centers more around realistically developing friendship than it does messing with pairings. This is another new one for me, but this story marks a lot of other firsts, so…**

 **If those things don't bother you, you'll probably enjoy it a fair amount. Go ahead and read on, I realize this author's note was painfully long.**

* * *

Transcendent Bonds Side Story

Break the Cycle

Prologue: Better and Worse

* * *

"You think you're better than us?"

The voice rang out loud and clear in my ears but I ignored it in favor of getting my things together. It was Friday, which meant no school the next day, so I had to bring some of the things I normally kept at school to my house. Not any of my textbooks, though – I had already read all of them once, so I'd remember everything in them for at least the next few years, word for word. The fact that I left them in my locker probably only fueled the resentment of the person who had called out to me, but I didn't care.

 _Well, I am smarter, faster and stronger than you, but I don't feel like wasting the breath in order to tell it like it is._

"Well? You gonna say anything, slut?" the female's voice called again, the word 'slut' dripping off her tongue like a viper's venom. "Yeah, I heard the rumors. Did you think people wouldn't notice you hanging around that part of Akiba?"

 _So every shop in that part of Akihabara is a prostitution house, then? The more this girl talks, the dumber she sounds._

"Not even gonna defend yourself?"

I still hadn't looked at the person speaking to me, but I already knew who she was: just a girl from my class who, until I transferred in, had always gotten the top score in her grade in most subjects. The moment I showed up, however, I took the top spot by getting completely perfect scores in every subject tested, not to mention achieving outstanding marks in PE – her worst subject – despite my shorter height. I couldn't really blame her for hating me. After all, I did present her with many things to be jealous of. I always had that kind of effect on people.

We were just tested in all five main subjects earlier this week, and the results had been publicly posted this morning. Apparently I had trounced her by a noticeable margin again, which is why she singled me out after school ended. It always happened, so I had grown used to it pretty quickly after transferring into this rather prestigious school in Tokyo.

But I wouldn't have to deal with it for much longer. I had just put the last of my belongings into my backpack. After slinging it onto my shoulder, I began to walk away, then paused for a second. I felt oddly daring this time, so I turned my head back just far enough to acknowledge her, but not far enough to actually see her.

"For future reference," I started, running my right hand through my long, lustrous black hair for a second. "If I don't respond, you've either said something really idiotic, proven to not be worth my time, or both. See you."

With that, I began to walk off. I realized that both her accusation and my retort had left the surrounding kids in a sort of stunned silence, but I didn't mind much . I heard murmurs like "Kirigaya-san has done it again" from a few kids as I passed them by, but I paid their commentary no heed and just continued walking away.

Once I rounded the corner, I noticed the presence of someone walking directly behind me. I didn't turn around to look – school just got out, so it was probably just another kid moving towards the exit. I didn't think anything of the occurrence until I passed one of the main exits in favor of one closer to my direct route… and the kid was still following a short distance behind me.

In order to judge whether the person behind me was following me or just going the same route, I decided to play a little game. Rather than going out my usual exit, I passed it, then went up the nearby stairs to the second floor. The kid kept walking right behind me, climbing the stairs a fair bit slower than I did.

When moving up the second flight of stairs on the way to the third floor, I caught a glimpse of the boy tailing me out of the corner of my eye, ascending the flight below me. He wore the usual male uniform of a blue jacket, white dress shirt and blue pants, but atop his head of chin-length dirty blond hair was a totally-against-the-rules gray beanie. His expression didn't suggest anything nefarious, but I couldn't be sure that he wouldn't try anything.

I kept going until I reached the door to the roof. While it was against the rules to go up there, I knew from experience that the door was never locked. I grabbed the handle and turned, and sure enough, it opened for me. I walked through and made my way to the railing, not even looking as I heard the door shut behind me.

About three seconds later, it opened again, much too soon for someone who was a flight below me. He must have dashed up the stairs the moment the door closed in order to close in on me faster. I swiveled my head left, locking eyes with him, and his eyes widened, realizing he'd been caught.

"I don't know why you followed me, but you weren't very careful about it," I told him, voice low with a practiced dullness. "I noticed you back on the first floor. What's your aim here?"

"I don't really have one," he replied, rubbing his neck awkwardly with his right hand. "I just… I thought it was interesting that you didn't deny her accusations back there. I'm pretty sure they're not true, so why didn't you say anything?"

I sighed, realizing I had gotten worked up inside for nothing. This boy didn't seem to be lying, nor did he appear to have an ulterior motive. He really was just curious about the little scuffle. The least I could do for completely misunderstanding the situation was give him an explanation.

"I just wasn't in the mood to make her look like an idiot again," I told him, looking back over the railing and noting the subject of my words on the ground below me. I considered giving her the finger, but decided if she couldn't see it, it'd be a waste. "It gets boring after you realize how laughably easy it is. She basically digs a grave for herself and crawls in."

"Again? And easy?! But she's one of the smartest kids in school!"

I normally would have dismissed this comment, but for some reason, this boy's honest, frank demeanor compelled me to reciprocate. I pointed to where the girl walked down below, where she was surrounded by her usual posse of three other girls. Right on cue, one of them frowned slightly at the same time as the ringleader's face brightened into a gleeful smile.

The blond boy moved to the railing in order to see where I pointed, and his expression grew puzzled for a moment. I turned back to watching her and began to explain.

"She's smart, yes," I acknowledged, my gaze cold and calculating. "But she's guided by her emotions and desires to an astounding degree. In particular, her pride and her desire to feel superior. She just made the frowning girl look bad in order to make herself appear better by comparison. I see it happen over and over again whenever her group is near me."

I moved my pointing hand back to the gray metal railing before turning back to the beanie-clad boy, my expression unchanging as I continued. He looked at me just as I began to speak again. "When a girl like me just shows up and is somehow better than her at everything without even trying, it hurts her pride and makes her feel inferior. This makes her angry, which clouds her judgment and renders her easy to make a fool of."

This would be the stopping point. Once people realized how much better I was than everyone else in almost every measurable aspect, they grew to resent me. My comments would be enough for him to figure out that I was the one who got perfect scores in all subjects, and with that realization the gap between us would become a giant chasm. He'd start thinking negatively of me and either leave or begin to harass me, like everyone else did.

"So then you're that one second year who always gets perfect scores? And you do it without even trying?"

My gaze shifted to the ground, and I repeatedly clenched and unclenched my fingers around the railing. Even though I had long since grown used to this part, it didn't make it any easier to see their faces at the moment they started to hate me. It became much easier to deal with if I simply looked away. As I stared at the roof's tile flooring, I nodded my head, then waited for a response.

His reaction was the opposite of what I expected. So loud it startled me into looking at him, he shouted, "That's so amazing! Are you a some kind of genius?!"

His expression once again hosted not a hint of dishonesty. This was what he really felt. He really thought of my intelligence as a good thing. It caught me so off guard that I ended up giving an honest answer about it for the first time in a very long while.

"Y-yeah, but that's only a part of it," I explained, holding up two fingers on my right hand to signify the existence of two factors. "I also have an eidetic memory. It can take several years for my memories to begin to fade, so if I read the textbooks once, I'll remember everything in them more than long enough to ace the whole class. I inherited both from my father, as far as I know."

"That's so cool!"

Once again, this boy's sheer enthusiasm about something I had despised my whole life took me by surprise. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to befriend him or tell him to quiet down a bit. But before I could try either one, he started talking again, saying another thing that caught me off guard.

"Hey, there's someone I want to introduce you to," he told me, his eyes bright and cheery to an almost alarming extent. "I think you'll like her. Do you have time, or is there somewhere you need to be?"

"No, I don't need to be anywhere…" I uneasily answered, wondering just what I was getting into by associating with this blond ball of energy.

"Great! Let's go, just follow me!"

"… But I never said I'd—"

I cut myself off this time. He had already began a dash back to the door, and was far enough ahead that he didn't hear my quiet protest. I resigned myself to whatever would come and began to race after him before he disappeared from my sight altogether.

* * *

For a guy who wanted to lead me somewhere, he sure didn't look back very much to see if I was still following. Granted, he wasn't that hard to keep pace with, despite being half a head taller than me, so I never actually lost sight of him. We wound through the hallways of the first floor, progressively encountering less and less students.

Finally, when the hallway was empty save for us, he stopped at a closed door. The sign just above the wooden frame read "computer room", but before I could question why he brought me to such a place, the blond boy grabbed the handle and turned it, opening the door before turning back to me.

"Wait here a sec," he told me before slipping through the doorway.

It was at this point that the ideas of just making for the exit or just not following him first crossed my mind. Really, I had no reason to stay – he said he'd introduce me to someone, but when he mentioned that it was a girl, my walls went back up full strength. I'd never met another girl that didn't resent me before. At first, it was just because I was smarter, but after puberty started, they gained another reason to hate me: my appearance.

Aside from my short height, I had a lot of traits that strongly appealed to guys. A slender yet toned frame with an hourglass figure, a large bust, a face completely free of blemishes, and long, naturally straight, glossy ebony hair… people had compared my beauty to that of a doll before. I was no stranger to confessions and date requests. As if that weren't enough to make other girls jealous already, the fact that I turned all of them down with no mercy somehow made my reputation among guys skyrocket into an almost legendary status.

The idea of making yet another girl hate me seemed like a poor decision, all things considered. The ones who didn't harass me would talk trash about me when they thought I couldn't hear. I didn't feel like making another enemy. Frankly, all the animosity was becoming tiresome.

Just before I turned to walk away, the blond boy came back out and grabbed my wrist suddenly, the contact shocking me into not resisting. "I cleared it with the gang, so you can come in," he told me, pulling me along until we were both in the room.

The first observation I made was that every single computer in the room was taken up by someone. There were four standard school desktop models lined up on a long table against the left wall, with a cushioned work chair in front of each. Every chair's occupant was doing something different.

The one closest to me was a boy with short brown hair, who seemed to be pretty tall. His eyes barely even looked open, and for a second I wondered how he even saw the computer screen his face seemed glued to. Either way, with those over-ear headphones on, he didn't notice us enter at all. Displayed on the computer screen in front of him, I noticed the UI of a familiar popular MMO that I myself played in my free time, Sword Art Online.

 _I'm surprised it can even run on these crappy computers._

The space next to him had a Google window up, though from this distance I couldn't see what the user had searched. Said user, a boy with long, wavy brown hair and soft eyes of the same color, seemed much more aware of the room's new occupants than the headphone-wearing teen to his left. However, his expression didn't give much away other than mild confusion. I couldn't really blame him, though; his friend had just brought a perfect stranger into the room.

The computer three seats from the door also seemed to be logged into SAO, though its occupant wasn't paying attention to it. I considered telling him that his player avatar was currently under attack by a monster, but since it didn't appear to be doing any lasting damage, I put it aside for the moment. The boy occupying this computer seemed a little shorter than the first one, with very short hair a dark red color. He had what appeared to be an apologetic smile on his face, making me wonder just how much he knew of the situation so far.

The final computer, which was right next to the window, didn't even seem to be logged on. Though that was rather odd, what struck me as more strange was the fact that its occupant was practically hiding behind the red-haired boy. I saw midnight hair and timid green eyes, but other than that, the rest of her was concealed by the boy in front of her. It brought the image of a shy little kitten to my mind, though I shooed the stray thought away as soon as it appeared.

"Hey, get your head out of the game," the boy with wavy hair said after pulling off one ear of the taller boy's headphones. "Hikaru brought someone."

So the name of the blond boy must have been Hikaru, I realized. Said beanie-wearing boy let go of my wrist just before I thought to ask him to, then flashed the wavy-haired boy a peace sign with his newly-freed hand. The cheekily victorious grin on his face made me wonder just what he thought he had accomplished by leading me here.

The boy whose eyes seemed permanently half closed pulled off his headphones before turning and promptly gaping at me like a dead fish. In the next moment, he exclaimed, "What a catch!" his voice boisterous.

At that moment, I _really_ wished I could tell exactly where he was looking when he said that. But before I could say anything, the wavy-haired boy elbowed him in the ribs, earning a startled yelp. As I watched the scene with a somewhat justifiable satisfaction, the redhead spoke up next.

"I don't know all the details," he said, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. "But it looks like Hikaru got all excited about something and dragged you here, right? Sorry about that."

The sudden apology caught me off guard a bit. I raised my hands as a show of no ill will. "It's fine, it didn't bother me." _Much, anyway._

"So, mind telling us why you brought a hottie like this in here?" the boy up front asked, which earned him another elbow to the ribs by the wavy-haired boy.

"It was a good question though, even if the phrasing was bad," the redhead acknowledged, looking at Hikaru with a serious expression. "Why did you bring her here?"

"Well, since it was my turn to be without a computer at club today, I walked around for a while after class, hoping to run into something interesting," the blond started, the cheeky grin resurfacing every time there was a pause in the narrative. "And I did! This girl was totally being harassed by the number two-ranked second year, but it didn't even phase her. Right before walking off, this shorty here even made a fool of her!"

"I don't get where this is going," the wavy-haired boy sighed. And at that moment, I felt exactly the same as he did, even though I knew the story. But more importantly, I had to restrain myself from stomping on the excited blond's foot when he called me a 'shorty'. That was one name I hated being called.

Hikaru continued recounting his side of the story, unaware that he was treading on thin ice after the reference to my height. "So I got curious about her and decided to follow her. She led me up to the roof of the school, where she told me she noticed me back on the first floor. We got to talking, and I found out that she's the second year who gets perfect scores in every subject!"

"And that makes it okay to drag her here because…" the redhead prodded, trailing off at the end to allow the blond to finish.

"Well, she said she does it without even trying," he replied, his words making me want to slap my palm over my own face. "And when I asked her if she was a genius, she said yes. After that, I kinda got excited and dragged her here."

The silence that followed was utterly palpable. I could see the wavy-haired boy and redhead both gearing up to say something to Hikaru, then probably tell me I could leave. In any other circumstance, I would have graciously accepted and gotten the hell out of dodge.

 _But… he was so accepting of me… I want to experience more of that._

These stray thoughts took me by surprise. I probably would have continued to explore them if I had more time on my hands, but I was in a race against time. If I waited too long and one of Hikaru's friends started talking, I would more than likely lose any potential place I had here.

I took a slow, deep breath, then began speaking about one of the first things I noticed when I entered the room. "So you guys play SAO? I'm honestly surprised it can run on those cheap old school computers."

For a few moments, everyone looked taken aback by my sudden, though not very loud, outburst. The midnight-haired girl's green eyes widened a bit, though out of all of them, her reaction was definitely the mildest. The wavy-haired boy's jaw dropped, the redhead's whole face screamed 'shell-shocked', and Hikaru's head whipped around to face me in record time. The nearest boy's reaction was not on his face, but instead in his hand, which formed a fist that pumped the air under the table where he thought no one would notice.

They probably all thought I didn't want to be there. And normally, I wouldn't, so it wasn't that far off. So my attempt at making conversation must have surprised them all greatly. At least, that's how I interpreted their kneejerk reactions.

The redhead recovered first, gulping and nodding his head. "Yeah, they run it, though just barely," he replied, gaining momentum the more he talked. "There's a small lag all the time, and during flashy Sword Skills, it gets a lot worse."

The ball returned to my court just like that, and I found myself faced with a very difficult choice. If I revealed my job to them, it would multiply the time we could spend together, but would also give me five more jobs to do. While that wasn't a whole lot of work for someone with my skill level, it very well could be a lot of money. Could they even afford it?

But at the same time, I had way more money than I needed to begin with. I really had no reason to charge them the full rate for my services. If anything, giving a buddy rate would be beneficial here.

All these thoughts ran through my head in a little under two seconds, and by the third, I had made my decision. I took a deep breath, looking the redhead dead in the eye before starting tentatively.

"I could… I could make you all some better computers if you wanted."

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **I don't know when the next chapter will come out. Not because I don't know what I want to do with it, though. I've just been focusing more on designing a new RPG Maker MV game of mine than I have been on writing for most of the past month. The demo is almost ready for release, and I'll probably be able to link it to people by the start of next month.**

 **As always for Transcendent Bonds-related works, this chapter was edited by my beta/cover artist, ForteDragon. Thanks goes out to her for making this into something presentable.**

 **So what did you think? Leaving aside that I stopped at a really cliffhanger-y point, I think this was pretty good. Especially after the edits made to it. But I'm not the one who decides that, you are! Go ahead and drop a review if you have anything to say that isn't along the lines of, "good/great story, update soon". Real critique is always welcome!**

 **I'm about done. I think I'll hold off on publishing until the morning, since I finished the author's notes at like one AM. You don't really get many readers if you publish when most of the primary viewing country is asleep.**

 **See you next chapter!**


	2. Chapter I: Not in My Store!

**Author's Note**

 **This… has actually been done for at least a month and a half. I wanted to make it longer by adding another scene, but I never did, and the last scene stops at a pretty good spot to end a chapter, so today I decided to just create the author notes and post it as is.**

 **I think the single biggest problem in this chapter is the fact that I make Kimiko seem like a Mary Sue. But considering this is the same Kimiko who becomes the Kiriko of GGO SW, none of the things that I reveal here should be unexpected, nor can they really be changed. Since they were all things that were revealed in GGO SW and TB quite a while ago** **…**

 **Anyway, I'm done rambling. Read on, everyone!**

* * *

Break the Cycle

Chapter One: Not in My Store!

 _The ball returned to my court just like that, and I found myself faced with a very difficult choice. If I revealed my job to them, it would multiply the time we could spend together, but would also give me five more jobs to do. While that wasn't a whole lot of work for someone with my skill level, it very well could be a lot of money. Could they even afford it?_

 _But at the same time, I had way more money than I needed to begin with. I really had no reason to charge them the full rate for my services. If anything, giving a buddy rate would be beneficial here._

 _All these thoughts ran through my head in a little under two seconds, and by the third, I had made my decision. I took a deep breath, looking the redhead dead in the eye before starting tentatively._

 _"I could… I could make you all some better computers if you wanted."_

* * *

"Wait, you make computers?" came the blond's instant reply. The others all had eyes that asked the same question… except for the girl, who still seemed to be kind of shocked that I was even still here.

"Well, building computers is kind of my hobby," I replied, shrugging my shoulders a bit. "Normally I build them and sell them to people through my blog, but since you guys probably don't have a whole lot of money to throw around, there's room to talk about giving you a buddy rate."

"Wait, isn't that a job?" the redhead asked, giving me a quizzical stare. "Aren't students at this school not allowed to work?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "They can't track it, since I do all normal transactions and shipping from home through an alias. So they can't enforce anything if they can't prove I'm doing something against the rules."

"So you'd build a computer for each of us, and give us a lowered price? That's five different computers. Wouldn't that cost you a lot of money?" the redhead, who I had grown increasingly convinced was the group's leader, restated my offer.

"Well, I've been making a profit off of this for about three years," I countered, shrugging my shoulders again out of nervous habit. "And at this point, because I multitask and build as many as I can at once, I make more money in about four months than my mother does in an entire year. And since I've saved pretty much all of it in the bank without having to pay for my own life expenses since I'm still a minor, I essentially have a small fortune. Money isn't really a concern."

It was all true, believe it or not. I typically had around ten computer building projects going on any given day. And considering that once I had all the parts, building a single computer only ended up taking around an hour, that meant I could typically finish four or five a day on school nights, and even more on Saturday and Sunday.

And as for my the magnitude of my profit margin, I really did make more money in four months than my aunt, who was my legal guardian and pretended to by my mother, did in an entire year. I'd seen one of her paychecks recently and I knew that she got payed the about same every payday since she worked by the hour and she pretty much never missed work unless she was sick. And when I calculated how much a whole year's worth of her paychecks would be, I found that my income, which she didn't know much about other than that it existed, actually surpassed hers after just about three months and three weeks, give or take a few days. Even with the very recent advent of virtual reality technology, building computers was a very lucrative business if you had the right connections for parts.

The bit about having a small fortune was sort of untrue, if only for the fact that it was sort of an understatement. About a week back, I whimsically decided to see how much my savings account and checking account had in US dollars by doing a mental conversion. It ended up being several hundred thousand dollars. I wasn't quite a millionaire by US standards yet, but give it another few years of this kind of progress and I definitely would be past that threshold by a considerable margin.

It definitely helped that I didn't have to financially support myself yet. As a fourteen-year-old kid, I didn't have to pay for anything I didn't want to buy for myself. But what really made the biggest difference was something else entirely. That being, of course, the amazing deals I got on all my computer parts. Because of a particular connection I had (it was the only thing I'd ever consider thanking my aunt for), I ended up only paying slightly more than what each part cost to make. Which more often than not was well over a fifty percent decrease in price from what it would normally cost.

 _Oh, speaking of which…_

Nobody had said anything yet. It had taken me all of three and a half seconds to think all that, and in that time, it had become unbearably silent. I decided to use the chance to my advantage, and with another shrug of my shoulders, I made a small leap.

"Actually, I have to go pick up some parts today anyway," I explained casually. "Why don't you guys come with me and check out how it goes from my end, then decide? That way, if you decide you want some new computers, I can order what needs to be ordered while I'm there."

* * *

Long story short, they all agreed to come with me. So we all left the school together, caught a train, and made our way to Akihabara. The district was easily the most anime-centric place in the world, but if you knew where to go, you could find some really useful stores that had nothing to do with cartoons of any sort.

The trip was relatively uneventful. The only real significant occurrence was that I learned all of their names. The blond who led me to the group was named Ishikawa Hikaru, apparently because of his hair color if his side commentary was to be trusted. I guess giving a natural blond a name that meant "Light" or "Brilliance" made sense. Kinda sounded like a girl's name to me, though.

The one with wavy hair, who seemed to be one of the most level-headed people amongst the five, was named Akiyama Michio. The one with a perpetual smile on his face, who seemed to be the most standardly teenage male, desires and all, was named Hayashi Nobuyuki. His name was interesting because it was the only one where the birth name had more syllables than the family name when spoken aloud.

The redhead, who definitely seemed to be the ringleader, had the name Tachibana Keita. It reminded me that one of the few SAO players on my in-game friends list (since I built computers more often than I gamed, I wasn't very social in the ones I did play) was named Keita… and his avatar had red hair. And he was the leader of his own small guild, though I didn't know exactly how many members it had. It was probably just a weird coincidence, so I dismissed it, but made a mental note to subtly check my suspicion later.

Then there was the last one. The only girl in the group, who still had yet to say a word to me or anyone else in my presence – she didn't even say her own introduction. I didn't know whether she was being incredibly shy or whether she was wary of me. The latter would make sense, considering I was offering to go out of my way to help them out at our first meeting. Anyway, her name was Takamachi Sachiko, though as Hikaru pointed out when he introduced her, everybody just called her Sachi.

Out of all of them, she piqued my interest the most. But she was also the one I was least inclined to show any interest in, considering how easily females seemed to come to hate me. Males were usually too busy tripping over their own feet in order to ask me out to really hate me, but girls… well, I'd never had a single female friend, unless you counted my cousin, who was raised with me as my sister.

 _Well, except for that one back in first year… but I dunno if I'd count her, all things considered._

Bottom line, I didn't have a very good track record with girls. At all. And I was in no rush to repeat the process again with this one. So I decided that unless she spoke to me, I wouldn't speak to her.

But since she didn't seem to want to talk at all, it didn't seem like it'd be an issue. Well, unless you consider the fact that every time my eyes wandered her direction, she seemed to be staring right at me. Every time, without fail. I really wanted to call her out on it, but I knew it wouldn't be a good idea if I wanted to become friends with this group.

Things progressed about like this until we arrived at the place I'd led them to. It was a computer parts store in a particularly run down part of Akiba, but the place offered some pretty amazing deals, and all their stock was top-notch. And since my aunt was drinking buddies with the store's owner, I got even better prices than normal people did.

As we all entered the store, I noticed a faint yet familiar tune playing in the background. This was one of the songs they put on every day at the same time. And coming here when this song was playing on this day of the week meant that a certain other regular customer would likely be there, too.

After navigating through a small ocean of aisles full of various computer parts that were kept in stock by default, we found our way to the counter in the back. And sure enough, the exact regular customer I expected to be there happened to be standing there, waiting on something. I noticed that the clerk wasn't there, so it came as a natural conclusion that he was in the back room getting some parts for the waiting guy.

This regular customer was a big, burly guy with really dark skin who hailed from America, but still had pretty good Japanese for a foreigner. To most people, his sheer muscle mass would be intimidating as hell, especially coupled with his normally serious face. He also shaved his head bald, and no matter what time of the year it was, he always seemed to just wear jeans and a tank top… even in the middle of winter. Although in the coldest months of the year, he often wore a hooded sweat jacket on top of his shirt.

But appearances were quite deceiving here. The guy, who seemed to be in his mid-twenties, kinda looked like a thug, but I knew firsthand that he was actually a pretty shrewd businessman and talented computer techie. He was the guy who initially made me consider starting my small scale but high end business with building computers, because of how easy he made it look. Luckily, for me, it actually was about that easy once I learned how.

He took notice of us as we passed the last aisle, and he looked over at each of us. I could feel the tension of the five behind me rise exponentially under his gaze, and I even heard one of them gulp. Then his face, which had seemed deadly serious before, broke out into a playful grin, showing off his amazingly bright teeth.

"What am I seein' here, Kimiko? You, of all people, actually brought friends, and five at once? I didn't even know ya had one!" he cracked, giving me a wave.

He had really good Japanese for someone who had only been here for about four years. But unfortunately, he deliberately chose to learn to speak the language in a Kansai dialect, which made him sound like some hick from the countryside. When I asked him about it, he just said it was to more faithfully recreate the kind of accent he had back in the US. The guy was really dedicated to recreating things accurately, I'd give him that.

"And I see you came alone again," I replied without missing a beat. "Still haven't managed to find a girlfriend yet, I take it?"

"Still workin' on that." He turned to face me, having come out of my comment unfazed. "Hey, we probably got another minute before the cashier guy comes back with my order. You know what time it is."

I couldn't help but break out into a cocky smirk as I walked right up to the spot next to him, leaning an arm on the counter. "You sure now? We have an audience today."

"All the more reason to give 'em a show, right? You five, watch this. It's crazy!" During the second sentence, he turned to look at the group I brought with me, who were still keeping a healthy distance.

"Just so we're clear, I gave you an out," I said before walking around to the other side of the counter until I was directly across from my visually deceptive friend.

We each put our right elbows on the table as our hands firmly grasped each other's. Yup, you guessed it – I was about to arm wrestle with a guy that had several times my muscle mass. This event was pretty common for us, ever since that one time he arm wrestled the clerk and I decided to try it too a few years back.

"All right, you ready?" I asked him, my face suddenly getting deadly serious.

From the outside, it probably didn't even look like there'd be a struggle. Probably seemed like he'd completely destroy me. And under any other circumstances, that would probably be the result between someone with his muscles and someone with mine.

"As ready as I'll ever be. I'll count us down. Three…"

But unfortunately for him, the deciding factor was against him, as always. No matter how many times we did this, it would always end the same way. Though the result seemed to be what made him keep doing it in the first place.

"Two…"

What was the one factor that was against him? Simple. He wasn't just dealing with some random computer nerd who never got any exercise. He was dealing with _me_.

"One. Go!"

In order to be polite, I gave him the first shot and try to take me out. He pushed and pushed with as much strength as he could muster, and for all his effort, he was rewarded with a single inch of movement over five whole seconds. I, on the other hand, was putting a real low portion my strength into it – nowhere near enough to put a strain on me.

But once it hit the ten second mark and he still hadn't made any more headway, I flexed my fingers on my hand. "My turn."

For one fantastic second, I poured all my strength into my arm. The single burst of full force completely overwhelmed him in an instant, and his hand hit the black marble counter with a loud, swift thud.

We both let go at the same time, and I gave him a sportsmanly nod. "Good game."

It ended the same way as usual. The moment I got serious, he got totally wrecked. I always seemed to be an anomaly in that regard – at least by normal human standards, I seemed to pull off some amazing and impossible feats even though I didn't really exercise outside of gym at this point. I did kendo in the past, which kept me in shape, but even back then, I seemed to have a way higher than average physical ability. If anything, I was a little weaker by this point, after a few months of relative inactivity… although my diet hadn't changed.

But most of the time, it didn't really do me any good to be stronger and faster than should be possible for someone of my stature. More often than not, people just called me names like "freak" and "monster" and avoided me like crazy. In kendo, it got to the point where the teachers wouldn't even spar with me because they didn't want to lose in front of the other students. And the ones who didn't react like that were only interested in recruiting me. Honestly, this guy was the first person I'd ever met who had a genuinely positive reaction to it, though there had been a few others since.

I walked back around to the customer side of the counter, then turned to our stunned audience. They all looked pretty unanimously shocked. I couldn't blame them, considering they just saw a big, bulky guy get wasted in arm wrestling by a total twig of a girl. Some people who happened to see it in the past wondered if it was just us putting on a show or him letting me win, but they usually backed off when they were asked if they wanted to try me.

The first one to recover was, rather predictably, Hikaru. He raised his fist high into the air. "That is _so_ _cool_!"

 _Well, that makes another one who reacted positively._

The rest of them gradually and silently went back to normal. Except for Nobuyuki, who seemed to remain totally enthralled with what he saw indefinitely. Actually, it was the first time I'd seen him without a smile on his face. He actually looked pretty normal without one, and in a good way.

"I'm guessing by the thud and impressed shouting that Kiriko's here," a new, tired, kind of old voice said from behind me. "And that you two arm wrestled with an audience. I'm sure our resident force of nature won effortlessly, as usual. I hope that nobody went on the employee side of the counter this time."

I turned around to find a tall, kind of unremarkable Japanese man who looked to be in his early to mid forties, with peppery black and silver hair and a relatively fit body. He wore a dark blue t-shirt that revealed his fairly muscular arms, but didn't really show them off, and in his distinctly veined right hand, he held a small shopping bag out towards the guy I just thrashed.

My energetic foreigner friend took the proffered bag and gave a bright smile, unbefitting of someone who allowed just the act protested to happen. "'Course not, gramps! We know exactly how ya feel about that."

Of course, this was a blatant lie, and the security cameras would prove it if the clerk so much as went in back to look at the tapes. But this sort of thing was kind of the norm at this point – as long as we arm wrestled when he was in the back room, and therefore couldn't see us, he'd turn a blind eye at either of us going on the employee side of the counter to do it.

I was pretty sure he let it happen because the publicity of an amazing kid with mildly superhuman strength arm wrestling there brought the place more customers. I came to this shop a minimum of once a week, on a day which my usual opponent also came. Usually, that day was Wednesday, but I came today, on Friday, to pick up some parts that they'd had to order last time I was there.

Point was, there were several customers of this shop who would come to watch the arm wrestling match every Wednesday. Those customers often told other people about it, who then came to watch out of curiosity and often ended up buying something. I'd attracted a fair amount of by this point regular customers with my disproportionate strength.

"So what's the story with the audience over there? Never seen any of 'em before, and there're five at once. It's a bit unusual," the clerk asked, gesturing to the group behind me with his hands.

My foreign friend tried to answer first. "Kiriko here brought some friends with her. But I gotta admit, it's pretty weird even after it's been explained."

"Now, for the real explanation. These five go to my school, and they've been playing an MMO called SAO on the school computers, which can barely even run it," I clarified things a little, giving the clerk a look that said I knew full well how unhelpful the previous answer had been. "So after seeing that, I offered to make them some newer ones that would handle it better. And since I had to pick up some stuff here anyway, I brought them along to help them decide whether to take me up on it."

"That makes a lot more sense," he replied, nodding his head. "So since you're trying to build them better alternatives to school computers, I'm gonna guess that means you'll be making them laptops for portability reasons."

"You got it. And to narrow it down, I'd prefer to use a uniform build that doesn't require soldering. Since having to do that takes more time, and I'm hoping to have these done by the end of the weekend if possible." I gave him a nod and a thumbs up.

"In that case, go start out with the second shelf from the front door, both the left and right side," he recommended, pointing to the location with his right index finger. "There's some new releases there that you might be interested in using. And by the time you're done browsing and picking stuff out, I'll have the parts you ordered last time up here waiting on you."

"Thanks, will do. Follow me, guys."

I walked back through the aisles, making it to the second one from the checkout counter before my American friend's voice called out. "Hey Kiriko, I'm gonna come, too. I've got my own reasons, but I need ta check out the new releases myself."

"Come on, then," I responded with a shrug of my shoulders. Not like I decided whether he came with or not, right? I didn't quite get why he even bothered telling me.

Ten seconds later, we were looking through the products in the aisle, which mostly consisted of processors and graphics cards – or rather, I was looking at them, my friend was looking at the front door, and my schoolmates were just standing around awkwardly, unsure of exactly what they were doing here. Around that time, I heard something really unsettling from the one who'd come with us.

"The reason I came with you guys to this aisle was to get a better look at this suspicious looking guy right outside the store," he told me, looking over at me with a sort of nervous expression.

I shrugged. "You look pretty suspicious, yourself. What of it?"

"The guy out there has a gun," he explained, making me suddenly freeze. "As in, an actual gun that shoots real bullets. He's holding it in his right hand. And he looks like he's planning to come in."

"Oh." That certainly did set off a few alarm bells in my head. I may have been incredibly physically strong, but that meant nothing against an actual gun. I wasn't bulletproof, I couldn't take a gunshot to a vital area and live.

"He's looking like he's going to come in really soon. Let's go hide behind the aisle caps, okay?" my friend suggested, saying it more to the five behind me than me myself.

I couldn't help but notice, as we all walked to the ends of the aisles and crouched down behind them, that my foreign friend was being unusually calm about this whole situation. I wondered if it was because he was from America… from what I'd heard, one could legally own guns over there, so maybe he was used to seeing them.

Around the time we were all spread out amongst the aisle caps enough to not give each other away, I heard the jingling of bells that signified someone opening the front door. Then a some footsteps, getting louder as they got closer to the middle aisle, which I was behind. Then they got quieter as they passed me.

Then, suddenly, a calm, collected, yet somehow distorted voice rang out through the store along with a distinct clicking sound. "Yeah, you're gonna be giving me all the money in the register there. And don't even think about signaling the police. If I see your hand go under the counter, you're dead."

"A-all right, all right. Let's not do anything crazy."

For some reason, after hearing this and the clerk's shaky affirmative, I found myself inexplicably… very angry. This asshole just _had_ to choose to rob this store when I brought other people here, didn't he? Well, I didn't have to let him do it, did I? I didn't know whether I'd be able to stop him, but I could at least distract him long enough for the clerk to press the button under the counter that gave a sort of SOS signal to the police. That would be enough.

I took my shoes off and set them on the floor without a sound before slowly rising from my sitting position, putting a finger to my lips as I looked at the others, who were still in hiding. My foreign friend, who was sitting next to me, made a move to grab my wrist and keep me stuck to that spot, but I was quick enough to evade his grip.

"Don't worry, I'll kick his ass good," I whispered to him as I began moving.

I began walking through the aisle, keeping my steps as slow and light as possible to avoid making any noise. It wouldn't have worked very well if I had kept my shoes on, what with the tile flooring being a bit squeaky. The reduced traction, and thus, power, was more than compensated for by the increase in stealth. This was a dangerous game – one misstep or ill-timed noise and someone could die. I had to be as careful as I possibly could until I could get into the right position to make my move.

As I walked, I could feel my body preparing itself for a fight. I could actually feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, making me even stronger and faster than I usually was. And I planned to put it all to good use.

Just like this, I was able to sneak up on him until I stood right behind him. The man holding a gun trained on the head of the clerk was a good head and a half taller than me, wearing a dark gray muscle shirt that showed off his arms. But, how should I put it… well, he didn't appear to have a lot of muscle to show off. He was apparently wearing a mask to hide his face, too, so I had to give him props for that, at least.

The only real dangerous factor about this guy was his gun, from what I could tell. He didn't have much muscle, nor did he have any other weapons – it was just the single firearm that struck me as in any way menacing.

But that factor stopped mattering once I got within striking distance. This guy was as good as done now. I had one good shot at taking him down, and I knew exactly how to do it.

The confrontation lasted seven seconds.

In the first, I used all my strength and both of my arms to push the guy right into the counter from behind. Since he had no idea anyone was even behind him, he didn't resist it at all, and the blow actually knocked him off balance so that he fell into the counter chest-first. Having tried to use his gun arm to break his fall out of reflex, he was no longer in a position to shoot anyone.

"Duck!"

In second number two, I shouted to the clerk to duck, and he followed my order without hesitation. Right after he moved out of the gun's range, the would be robber regained his balance, turned around and tried to point the gun at me.

But unfortunately for him, I had seen through all that. I knew he'd change his target to me the moment he realized I was there and he could no longer use the clerk as a hostage. So about half a second before the gun would have been in line with my head, I grabbed his wrist with my right hand, putting as much strength as I could into a shove to get the gun away from me. His own arm's resistance didn't give me any struggle whatsoever – my strength completely outclassed his, even more so now that I was hopped up on adrenaline.

He naturally tried to use his free hand to punch me once he realized that he wouldn't be able to shoot. But I had seen that coming a mile away. Using my left hand, I grabbed his second wrist, smiling as I realized my objective had basically been completed.

By now, we were at five seconds. He tried to pull his wrists out of my grasp, but as everyone else here knew already, my strength was in a completely different league from his. In response to his useless resistance, I tightened my grip on both wrists as much as possible, until I heard an odd, yet satisfying sound.

It sounded like something snapped. And when the gun suddenly dropped to the ground and he screamed in pain, I realized what had happened – I'd broken his wrists. It was almost laughably easy, to the point that I couldn't even feel accomplished for doing it. I used my foot to slide the gun away from him for good measure, then decided to say something.

"Looks like I win. That's what you get for trying to rob my favorite store while I'm in it," I told him, giving him a condescending smirk. "We'll just stay like this until the police arrive. Resist any more and I'll break something else, _got_ _it_?"

Needless to say, he didn't try anything past that point.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **I don't actually remember enough of this chapter to do a summary… let's just say she looks like a Sue and move on, okay? Because next chapter will prove that she's not totally perfect and that all the assets she does have are effectively useless in the face of the struggles she routinely faces. And that's what I'm really looking forward to receiving critique for.**

 **Not much else to say, really. I'll just wrap it up here. Non-generic, non-Sue-bashing reviews, please!**

 **See you next chapter!**


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